This history of dairy farming in Yachiyo City began in the first year of the Taisho Era when Junpei Wada bought a large piece of land and started breeding cows. However, Junpei suddenly quit because of religious reasons, and his big meadow was sold to Seiichi Furuya's milk compony, Koshin Dairy Compony. Yoshitaro Kajiro and his associates joined Seiichi Furuya and moved to Yachiyo City from Ojimacho Joto ward in Tokyo (now Ojima Koto ward). They built a large ranch, and this was the start of dairy farming in Yachiyo City. After World War II, Koshin Dairy Compony lost 2/3 of its land due to the implementation of the agricultural land reform. They restarted the milk compony with the land they had left. ln the other nearby lands, some people built small and mediumsized ranches in front of the Koshin Dairy Compony. A new and major dairy district was born around the Koshin Dairy Milk factory. There was rapid economic growth in Japan around the 1960s. The population in the Tokyo area had increased continuously in nearby area, including Yachiyo. Residential land, housing complexes, and more development were carried out along the Keisei Electric Railway lines. ln 1996, the Toyo Rapid Railway (Toyo Kosoku Tetsudou ) was constructed in this dairy district. Dairy farming in Yachiyo City has shrunk significantly to the present day. Many dairy farmers change their businesses, and meadows were converted to railway stations, shopping malls, apartment buildings, and more. It has undergone a unique change that is different from other dairy regions due to the historical path of this city.

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This paper aims to clarify the processes behind the introduction and formation of the dairy farming industry in Hokkaido’s Tokachi region from the late 1920s through to the early 1940s. From the 1890s to the early 1910s, the center of dairy cattle breeding in the Tokachi region was in the Toyokoro and Otsuareas. However, that shifted to the western part of Tokachi after World War I due to the advance of sugar beet companies and the Hokkaido Government’s agriculture policy at the time, in which sugar beet companies served as dairy industry capital. Then in 1931, a series of bad harvests led to the introduction of dairy farming in the eastern part of the Tokachi region, where rice paddies had been developed. During this period, the industrial associations of each town and village emerged as the key players in dairy farm management, a fact linked to the existence of a solid sales route through the Hokkaido League of Cooperatives for Dairy Production and Sales (Hokkaido Seiraku HanbaiKumiai Rengokai). The period covered in this paper, when dairy farming spread throughout the region and there was a rise in interest among local towns in dairy farming management, is considered an extremely significant time in the history of Tokachi dairy farming.

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